


Surprise Me, Protect Me

by Nenalata



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Caspar Being Caspar, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fort Merceus, Ha Ha Sure You Love Me But How Much Ha Ha Ha, Hilda Being Hilda, I'm sorry to those poor unrecruited students, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Linhardt Being Linhardt And We All Wish He Weren't Sometimes, Mentioned Blue Lions Students (Fire Emblem), Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Pining, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Probably not TOO Sad but hey ya never know, Sad with a Happy Ending, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Survivor Guilt, but like just a little, look at these noodly little arms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21507928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenalata/pseuds/Nenalata
Summary: "If you're always picking fights, you might get so badly injured that you can't protect me!""Now, that's a good point right there."There weren't many opportunities to protect someone on a battlefield. There were even fewer to protect your enemy. But Caspar wasn't such a heartless general he wouldn't at leasttryholding back against a wounded soldier. Even if Hilda hadn't asked him to.Guys don't help Hilda because sheguiltedthem into it. And she didn't really appreciate how that seemed to be the reason Caspar helpedher.Several moons after the fall of the Adrestian Empire, Caspar was sick of guilt, and Hilda was sick of holding back.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Hilda Valentine Goneril
Comments: 16
Kudos: 80
Collections: Honest Reasons to Fight





	1. Caspar

**Author's Note:**

> Why is this a rarepair?! It's so freaking good!!!! Here's a contribution to that tag, because I guess rarepairs is all I do now.
> 
> This takes place in the same universe as my Mercedes/Sylvain fic ["This One"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20766740), but completely unnecessary to read if you're just here for Caspar/Hilda. You might spot familiar things from that fic, but you won't miss anything crucial.

Crimson rays from the burning sunset behind Fort Merceus set the rows of blue-bannered soldiers’ armor aflame.

The Kingdom’s army was large; larger than Caspar expected, even though he _knew_. Rather, was _supposed_ to know. There were a lot of reports and intel that came each Imperial general’s way, and that was a lot of sit-still reading in his rarely-used offices in the barracks that Caspar frankly never had the time to visit.

Too much training to do; too many drills to run; too many soldiers depending on him.

Too many reasons to feel guilty. Not afraid, never _afraid_ , but…

“Do you think we’ll recognize anyone?”

It was a stupid question, and Caspar wouldn’t have blamed Jeritza if he didn’t reply. He couldn’t see his former swordmaster professor’s expression behind that badass, creepy helmet, but even without it, the man’s face was always impossible to read.

If Caspar was always on the move and a blur of hot-blooded beatings on the battlefield, Jeritza was the stillness of a frozen, lonely death always looming in the back of every soldier’s campaign nightmares. Today could have been no different. Even the man’s horse didn’t appear to be breathing.

The Kingdom army was large. There was no way to pick out familiar robes, familiar hair, familiar faces, familiar weapons, familiar sparks. But Caspar found himself scanning the ranks of approaching foot soldiers, cavalry, fliers, archers, mages anyway. Like there were only a few souls in those forces worth mercy.

And Caspar could have sworn Jeritza—the Death Knight—searched the marching, even rows like he was doing the same thing.

Jeritza shifted in his saddle, movement so sudden and out of character Caspar flinched. Black gauntlets relaxed around the shaft of that cruel black sickle, and when Jeritza finally answered Caspar’s question, the word came out through the helmet just as cruelly. Aloof. Distanced. Resigned.

“No.”

He dug his spurs into his horse’s side, and the Death Knight rode off to ensure their own troops had taken position. Caspar remained on the wall, foolishly exposed to well-aimed arrows and lightning bolts in the open air.

The Kingdom—

The _enemy_ army was large.

Not large enough he couldn’t see just how many Heroes’ Relics glowed in the ranks, organized by battalion and meticulously spaced apart.

They were generals now, like him. Leaders in their own right. His classmates—

The ragged edges of a glowing axe drew his eye. And would you look at that, but it was—

_“—wriggling! Ugh, like it’s_ alive _! So creepy. Honestly, I wish_ you _could have it. You’re so much better muscled for a big ol’ axe like this. Not like me, with my noodly little arms—”_

Caspar turned his back on the approaching army and hurried to join the others. His own troops.

The Death Knight was right.

He didn’t think he would recognize anyone, either.

What a shame he had.

* * *

Caspar had started off on the offensive.

He tore through opponent after opponent, leaving red trails of their final moments as paths for his own battalion to follow. He could shove or punch a Kingdom foe in the direction of where he _knew_ his soldiers would be, and fast-responding Imperial lances, swords, tomahawks would end any stumbling attempt to fight back.

Caspar had trained them well. But even the best-trained soldiers were equally adept at dying as poorly-trained ones when Kingdom spears, blades, maces found one weakness too many.

Each of his soldiers who fell stoked the fires of Caspar’s battle fury. His gauntlets hit harder. His strikes moved faster.

His rage grew stronger. Until it wasn’t a cultivated berserker style anymore, but _personal_.

Hubert had always given him shit for yelling on the battlefield. That his enemies could hear him approach, he’d give away his soldiers’ position, all sorts of Hubert-ish nonsense that amounted to scheming and underhanded tactics that yes, got results, but didn’t feel nearly as good or natural. Caspar had been trying as of late to reign himself in, at least a little—roar deep, bone-shaking war cries only to invigorate his troops and terrify his opponents who hadn’t seen him coming.

But now his troops were _dying_ and his opponents were _terrifying_ with the sheer number of them _coming_. Artillery and magefire had smashed open the portcullis, and enemy reinforcements pouring through its smoking remains seemed to replace every one of their fallen soldiers with two more.

A spinelike sword gleamed somewhere to his right, and Caspar’s vision went redder than that sunset, his bootprints, his Imperial-issue armor.

“Yo, _Professor_!” he screamed, like a man deranged. But the Professor was busy electrocuting a woman off her pegasus and didn’t hear him among the rest of the shouting. Someone else did—someone with a foreign design on her cheek and a snarling wyvern thundering towards him on all fours.

_That’s new_ , Caspar thought. Then, _The Death Knight stationed a battalion of archers above this corridor_.

He took off running like a crazed shepherd, barely remembering to bellow at his remaining troops to follow. Not many heard him, but there weren’t many left to begin with.

And there were fewer of them behind him the faster he ran. Petra’s wyvern screeched and snapped its teeth what felt like every few seconds. Imperial screams cut off faster than Caspar could shred apart Kingdom armor.

By the time Caspar reached the archers, Petra had evidently deemed him no longer a threat. She and her wyvern literally turned tail, abandoning him to the fray as surely as he’d abandoned his soldiers.

_No_. They knew what war meant.

Red flags became redder as blue-robed mages set them aflame. The horde of Kingdom soldiers rushed deeper, towards the heart of the fortress. Towards the Death Knight. Jeritza.

Clomping wyvern claws followed them, and it was all Caspar could do to beat any nearby opponents out of the action before they could join the others. Dagdan-style arrows punctured the chests of the soldiers behind him, but the sniper to whom they must belong was nowhere in sight. That was not a comforting thought.

Caspar knew from his days as a rambunctious brat there was a hidden passage nearby leading straight behind the dais where he hoped Jeritza still lurked. And if the man had gone off to decimate the Kingdom army elsewhere, at least Caspar stood the chance of defending the inner keep in his place.

His chief concern was Shamir melting out of the shadows. But at least he knew she’d give him a quick death. Caspar’d rather go down with a fight, but if anyone had to take him out before his brain even registered its death, he’d rather it be her. He was running before the rational thought could melt into something as useless and embarrassing as a _fear_.

Caspar slammed into the crumbling wall concealing the passage. His first realization was that it broke apart easily. His second was that part of it had already been destroyed. His third thought—

“Oh, come on! Why’d it have to be _you_ who found me?”

Caspar reeled back, like the wide, glistening pink eyes had shot him through with lightning. And for a moment he was sixteen and immortal and untouchable and stupid: “Hilda? What are you doing here?”

The vicious sound of battle raged from deeper down the passage. Kingdom forces had broken through to the inner keep. Freikugel rested against the wall next to her, bloodied and pulsing. Hilda herself fared no cleaner: grime and blood and scars he didn’t remember her having patterned her skin.

She gave him such a Hilda-style _look_ he forgot he was twenty-one and mortal and unstoppable and stupid. “We’re invading, silly. And I’m hiding.”

Caspar was twenty-one, not sixteen. He was a general in the Imperial army, and she was an Alliance lord’s daughter who must have defected or run away to join a Kingdom’s cause she probably didn’t even believe in. How many of their friends had she killed so far?

How many had he?

She was twenty…something, not sixteen. And stupid to hide here. Mortal like the rest of the people they’d killed in the name of someone else with loftier goals. Arm twisted unnaturally with her nervous smirk more of a grimace.

Stupid to _hide_.

And, since Caspar was apparently stupid enough to let her…

“You really do got noodly arms, huh?”

He took off running without checking her face one last time.

Hilda was good at patching up wounds. She’d be all right. And if she wasn’t, at least Caspar would never know.

* * *

Sweat, blood, and dirt caked Caspar’s hair and coated the gaps in his armor. No one had caught sight of him where he was leaning against a pillar, and for some reason, it kind of pissed him off. He was pretty sure some part of his leg was damaged six ways to hell, but he hadn’t seen one of his own mages in what felt like years in this ruined fort. No healing would be coming his way any time soon.

“I’ll fight…to the very end,” he swore to himself between wheezes, but the last part of the sentence was joined by a cough that left a couple drops of blood splattering out of his mouth, dribbling down his chin. “That’s…probably not a great sign.”

His wheezing sounded _so loud_. How could no one hear him?

Outside of his hiding place, Caspar heard Kingdom soldiers speaking in low, weary voices. Raspy from smoke, straining through injuries, broken through tears. And then there were the too-familiar voices, the ones he didn’t really want to pay attention to or remember.

Jeritza lay twisted on the dais. Caspar had seen Dorothea’s old friend yank Lúin out of that jet-black, freshly-painted crimson chestplate, and the Professor had watched it happen with some unnatural, inscrutable expression freezing his face into a mask more disturbing than Caspar had ever seen on him before.

“I have to tend to them,” Mercedes’s almost unrecognizable voice babbled through hysterics. “I have to—I have to tend to them—”

“He’s over here, Mercedes.”

Caspar didn’t remember her name, the blonde woman with the clear, commanding voice. But he did remember Ashe, standing next to her and wiping Imperial blood from his face.

“—them both. They _need_ me—”

“This one is dead already,” a distinct accented voice informed her with calm pity evening out the harshness of the words. “I know their armor is looking similar, but Sylvain is this way. He is not the Death Knight.”

“She’s hysterical.” Caspar shuddered when Shamir cut through the bedlam. “She’s in no state to heal him more. Where’s Annette? Get her to—”

“That _fucking_ idiot! Jumping in front of me like that, practically _trying_ to get his worthless ass killed—”

“What are you _doing_ here, Caspar?” an even more familiar voice hissed right behind him, and Caspar swung without thinking twice. Linhardt dodged with such ease that Caspar knew he must be in shittier shape than he feared. “I never took you to have an actual death wish.”

Caspar’s hands shook, and he hoped it was from nerves, not something more _dire_ from his wounds. Linhardt crouched before him, just out of range of Caspar’s too-heavy gauntlets. Or so he thought. If he reached a little more, if he lunged forward just enough…

His leg screamed when he shifted even a little. It took all of Caspar’s will not to do the same.

Linhardt’s brows furrowed. “You’re injured,” he noted.

“Yeah, no shit!”

Why was he even entertaining this conversation?

He laughed, an unamused, pathetic cough.

What else was there to do? Let his final moments be a failed, obvious attack on someone he wished was still his best friend?

“Speak softer, will you?” That old best friend sounded exasperated, the same exact inflection as the many, many times he had bust open his bedroom door and interrupted his repetitive, never-ending _research_. “I can’t think of a single person out there who won’t try to kill you.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?”

“Do be quiet, Caspar.” A burst of white-green light, and Caspar bit down on his tongue hard enough to make it bleed, because the muscles in his leg loosened and stretched and—

Oh, sweet Goddess. That felt _better_.

Caspar leapt to his feet and stretched his shoulders, and before he could even communicate any physical sign he was prepared to rip that entire army apart one head at a time, a powerful gale of choking wind blasted him in the opposite direction. Linhardt had his hands raised in a deceptively defensive pose, but his gaze was trained on Caspar’s upper arms, the only things that ever gave away where and when he was going to move. The only tells Linhardt knew he’d never been able to break.

“Linhardt,” Caspar growled, flexing his fingers in their clawed grips, “don’t try and stop me.”

“Run, Caspar.”

Linhardt’s suggestion—no, _command_ —had as mild a delivery as everything else he’d said. A remark. A comment. An opinion.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No.”

They stared each other down, two childhood friends who’d never had a fight, who’d never had a _reason_. Twenty-one years old and covered in what might as well have been the other’s blood.

“They will find you,” Linhardt continued, so casually it would have pissed him off if the nostalgic, condescending sound wasn’t so damned _chilling_. “And if they don’t, they’ll ask me if I’ve seen you. And I will say yes. And I don’t really want to be capable of answering ‘where,’ because I’ll answer that, too. I don’t have the energy to think of a plausible excuse right now. This day’s been so tiring.”

Caspar’s breath came fast and faster. Linhardt’s spell finished working its way through his deeper cuts and bruised bones. He could run right now. He could punch that frustrated, tense look off Linhardt’s face right now. He could—

There had been a voice missing from the cacophony of grimly-celebrating Kingdom soldiers.

“Behind me,” he said with all the resignation of a man who’d sold his identity to the highest, only bidder, “there’s a passage.”

Linhardt glanced over his shoulder and edged away in the direction Caspar had indicated with an exhausted shake of his head.

“Hilda’s sitting there. She’s really hurt, I think.”

Linhardt didn’t look at him again, and Caspar was grateful for it. He backed away slowly. He knew this old, impenetrable place like he thought he’d known his own strength. He knew how to escape, even if he didn’t want to.

“Ugh. I’ll have to wade through that sea of corpses you made for me.” His friend sighed and trudged off. “How absolutely inconsiderate of you.”

Caspar bolted, hunting through the halls for that final secret passage, and prayed Shamir’s arrows didn’t find him first.

* * *

What an easy thing it was, to be a second son of a noble House so few ordinary people would recognize.

Townspeople wanted bodyguards, caravan escorts, toughs. They got people like Caspar.

They got _Caspar_.

They also got criminal types, swindlers, deserters, prisoners of war deemed too unimportant for the Kingdom to hold onto. People with nowhere to go, nothing to lose, and a whole lot of vengeance.

Caspar thought he had at least two of the three, which in his and his employers’ mind made him a suitable candidate for each job.

“I’m making a deal with a kind of shady character tomorrow night. If it goes well, I’ll make a killing and I’ll split the profits with you for protection. But I don’t trust her. She may want to make a _killing_ , too! Ha!”

_Boring_. Too much talking. Half the time, no one even furrowed their brows. Paranoid business folk hoping to scare the competition with cutthroat tactics they didn’t even have the guts to command.

“Yo, you look like you can throw a punch. Wanna break up tavern fights tonight?”

_Boring_. Easy. Caspar never even got to instigate, or pick his own battles. If he mediated with his fists, he didn’t make any friends. It was never _his_ party.

“We’re sending supplies to refugee camps up north, but there are still a ton of Imperial stragglers. Guess they haven’t heard the war is over yet.”

He almost took that one. And then the words processed: _Imperial_ stragglers.

“Uh.”

Caspar’s almost-employeer quirked a quizzical brow. “It’s not that far. Should be pretty easy for someone with muscles like _those_.” The woman gestured vaguely to his exposed biceps ripping out of his sleeves, and her gaze lingered.

What, did she think he was suddenly gonna start swinging at her? Or…

Oh, no.

Had she _recognized_ him?

“I got a thing,” Caspar squeaked.

“A _thing_ , huh? Can I use your _thing_ to convince you…?”

_Huh_?

“You know,” he tried again, but a smirk had joined her raised eyebrows. “A thing. Uh. ‘Nother job.”

The woman’s expression fell, and the smirk on her lips twisted into a thoughtful, irritated frown. “Oh? And they pay better? Or is it just…not what you’re into?”

_What the hell_?

Caspar babbled some excuses and went back to the maybe-a-little-too-nice inn he’d been staying at the last few days. He’d hardly had time to liquidate any of his assets from the Adrestian treasury before it all got looted, or worse, transferred to Kingdom coffers. And, even if his inheritance as second-born weren’t modest enough, his father had seen fit to dip in even further for the war effort.

He couldn’t even blame the man. Caspar was sure his younger brothers had fared worse. But it wasn’t like he knew where they were. How they were.

If they were _alive_.

Who _had_ even killed his father? Caspar wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but some weird, guilty part of him hoped it was Petra. It’d even them out a bit, he hoped. He never quite knew how to talk to her when they were both Black Eagles classmates together, and he was ashamed by how much better he'd felt after she’d transferred to the Blue Lions.

If she’d killed his own father, well…

Caspar could respect that. And having that insanely strong, insanely respected general take on an enormous dragon with an axe-wielding warrior princess holding its reins as his final opponents…

It was kind of a badass way to go. A stupid comfort to imagine, but comfort was comfort—

Caspar halted mid-step halfway up the staircase to his rented room.

That merchant woman had been trying to _seduce_ him.

Red had never quite been Caspar’s color, unfortunately for him and his old, long-since-sold Adrestian armor. He scurried up the rest of the stairs to his room and refused to check the mirror, see if his blush was as pronounced as he feared.

“My _muscles_ ,” he groaned into his hands, sinking down on the bed. “My…my _thing_ , holy shit…”

What was _wrong_ with him? Each time Dorothea’d ask him to help her redecorate her room or help her bring back her giant baskets of clean laundry, his terrified but intrigued teenage mind would automatically jump to the worst, best-case scenario and get disappointedly relieved each time he wasn’t right about her intentions.

Caspar flopped back on his sheets and stared at the worn wooden ceiling. Maybe it was time to go somewhere else, do different kinds of work. Not just grunt work. Shamir had been a mercenary, and she’d seemed to have done well for herself.

She’d helped win a _war_ , after all. She’d helped bring about his own defeat.

He squeezed his eyes shut and threw his arms over his face, trying to hide again from something he didn’t want to admit.

The Professor had been a mercenary, too, come to think. And he hadn’t known anything about anything with that kind of free-spirited, always-on-the-move lifestyle.

“I wonder if either of them killed Ferdinand,” he mumbled under his skin—his _muscles_. “Or…or Bernadetta. I wonder if, if Dorothea, in the capital, if any of them—”

They probably had.

Generals in the Kingdom army, swinging orange-glowing holy weapons to cut a path straight to victory and everyone else’s defeat.

Caspar had been prepared to do the same.

Anger simmered low in his stomach, and the more Caspar thought about it, the angrier he became. He’d stamped down on this kind of shit for too long, the rage he didn’t want to call _grief_. And if blushing didn’t suit him, neither did moping.

“I gotta get out of here.” He leapt off the bed and finally caught sight of his own reflection in the smeared, almost-but-not-quite grimy mirror. He’d never managed to bulk up. Never had the chance to ask Raphael for any pro eating tips, to wipe the floor with broad-shouldered Sylvain’s winking face, to get any answers from deadly Jeritza beyond “you kill adequately enough.”

To finally beat the shit out of Linhardt and his stupid _height-advantage_.

He threw everything—gauntlets, armor, coins, remaining vulneraries and bandages—into his bag and left the inn a day earlier than paid for.

To get Hilda to clean his wounds with stinging poultices and applaud him for his lack of restraint.

* * *

“You’ve got no fucking restraint, you know, kid?”

“Nope,” Caspar grinned at his boss. Not his employer—his boss. “And I’m not a kid.”

He socked the leader of his mercenary band in the teeth, and that was the last the guy was able to say.

The other mercenaries didn’t need spoken orders to react, however. The ones who just gaped too long at Caspar knocking the stuffing out of their leader followed him into unconsciousness— _hopefully_ unconsciousness—but the rest drew their blades and axes and jumped him.

Boring.

_Easy_.

Caspar didn’t manage to get all of them. Some of them took their chances and ran. Others took their chances and kept hitting even as his former fellows dropped like flies. He took a slice to the jaw that could have been _really_ bad if the chick knew even a little more what she was doing, but Caspar knocked her out cold before she could remedy her mistake. Anyone else who so much as left a bruise felt the weight of his favorite, costliest silver gauntlets cracking against their ribs, or its cleanly-sharp claws rendering their weapon arms useless, or simply tasted Caspar’s boots.

The second he’d beaten a clear path out of their camp, Caspar did what he’d been doing too much lately, which was to run.

A couple of his old band tried to keep up, but it wasn’t long before they gave up and, Caspar assumed, headed back to camp to tend to their wounded. The warriors Caspar hadn’t managed to consider friends.

This was the second group he’d left like this. The Professor, Shamir, and even old Captain Jeralt had made mercenary work seem easy, fun, quick coin. And once again, Caspar’d met only two of those three. It wasn’t fun extorting fumbling merchants out of their debts to enterprising Kingdom debtors who had enough gold from _other_ extorted, fumbling merchants to hire mercenaries to rough them up. It definitely wasn’t fun signing contracts he knew he couldn’t negotiate even if he bothered to read them. And it was zero types of fun losing his temper when people like his—former—boss talked such _rot_ about the “weaklings” in the Imperial army.

That guy hadn’t even been in Kingdom ranks. No, he was from the Adrestian Empire, too—he hadn’t enlisted and had run off at the first sign of Kingdom triumphs.

“What’s wrong, _Caspar_?” his boss had scoffed above the rowdy laughter of the other mercenaries when they noticed Caspar’s shaking grip had split his tankard in half, cheap ale dribbling down his fingers. “You some hotshot little general’s son all sad his papa got skewered by a better fighter?”

Caspar had already been on his feet at the word ‘little,’ and when he threw the wooden tankard against the tree they’d felled into a makeshift bench, its splinters splintered _harder_ by the end of the leader’s sentence.

If lacking restraint meant letting cowards and assholes like _that_ talk however they wanted about good men, good soldiers they didn’t even know, Caspar didn’t want to know what ‘restrained’ looked like.

But the cut on his jaw did hurt. A lot, actually. Enough to make him stop just before the next village glowing in the sunlight beyond the forest. Enough to make him sit just at the edge of the treeline and rifle through his bag for some salve or whatever to blot up the blood.

And he was, of course, out of salves. Potions. Poultices.

_Bandages_.

And out of well-timed appearances from old, dearly-missed friends—

“I thought I’d find you sooner or later. Didn’t think it’d be here, though.”

Caspar swung without thinking—again—and Linhardt dodged— _again_. Not even a leaf dropped from the bundle of herbs he carried.

“What are you _doing_ here, man?”

Linhardt plopped down on the grass, directly across from Caspar’s tree.

Except in the shade. Because war changed people, sure, but not too much.

“I was thinking of heading to Castle Gautier,” Linhardt continued conversationally. He closed his eyes, and Caspar would have been more insulted were his injury not stinging so badly and a tempting-looking potion not glinting in that familiar leather mage’s pouch. “I heard a rumor their alchemy laboratory is painfully under-utilized considering how well-stocked it is with Crest history and old analysis, but…” He yawned mid-sentence, like he’d _finally_ just realized how boring his boring Crest research was. “Well. That’s why. What are _you_ doing here? Killed another mercenary gang?”

“No, I did not _kill_ another mercenary gang!” Caspar snapped back on instinct, but then he froze. Blood dripped down his chin. “Wait. How the hell do you know I’ve been—”

Linhardt made the effort to lift his lids halfway, but Caspar still felt the weight of his ever-present weary stare he only seemed to bestow upon him. “You do understand you’re not the most subtle of men, Caspar.”

“Well, _yeah_ , but—!”

“Everyone and their grandfather’s heard about the sudden competence of two run-of-the-mill mercenary troops thanks to a hot-headed new addition.” Linhardt closed his eyes again, grabbed the potion Caspar practically had been salivating at, and rolled it through the grass his way. Caspar grabbed it and chugged the thing, and Linhardt waved a lazy glowing hand in the vague direction of his face. The potion numbed the pain he hadn’t realized was itching at every corner of his body, and he winced while the cut sealed up. “That means they’ve _also_ heard about…well. That hot-headed new addition’s _effective_ letter of resignation.”

Caspar’s most painful bruises had faded, and as cold horror creeped through his veins, he stared at a scrape on his palm as it tried to use the last of the magic to smooth over.

If ‘everyone and their grandfather’ was gossiping about some hot-head new mercenary in town, did that mean they’d tried to figure out who that mercenary was? Where he came from? Where he’d trained?

Had anyone _recognized_ him as one of Minister von Bergliez’s sons, or worse—a high-ranking defector from the Imperial army?

He hadn’t heard the name _von Bergliez_ yet. Caspar knew his father was surely dead, but his eavesdropping on Kingdom townsfolk hadn’t brought him any speculations on the second-son’s whereabouts. He hadn’t heard any mention of any generals’ deaths, come to think, but he’d been wandering from sparsely-populated town to sparsely-populated town so much the last few moons that maybe such titles and names and nobles weren’t such…common conversation topics.

No, conversation had been about food shortages. Relief efforts. Lack thereof. Too many soldiers about. Not enough soldiers about. High taxes. Lower taxes.

A new King on the throne.

But what sort of names _would_ the common townsfolk recognize? And what kinds of names would they want to run out of town—

And instead of voicing any of these concerns and random, frantic thoughts, Caspar grinned at his best friend and asked, “They think that hot-head’s _competent_ , huh? _Effective_?”

Linhardt smiled so faintly anyone else would have missed it. “Well, more so than the other mercenaries, at least. Perhaps less self-control.”

“They were all taller than me, you know. Well, most of ‘em.”

“I’m not entirely sure I believe you, but I’ll pretend I do. You’ll be insufferable on the way over otherwise.” Linhardt got to his feet and started ambling out of the forest. Caspar gaped. When he realized he was ambling alone, he stopped, turned, and sighed. “I have things to do, Caspar. I’d rather _do_ them while my feet still have momentum. A body at rest stays—”

Caspar scrambled to his feet and ignored the lingering twinges of protesting wounds. “Wait, Linhardt—are you, am I supposed to, are you inviting me along?”

“I’d assumed you were coming even without an invitation.” Confused, sleepy eyes blinked back. “Did wartime really make you want to stand on ceremony?”

“ _Hell_ no!” Caspar ran the three steps to meet him, and they started walking towards—wherever, _wherever_ , Caspar did not _care_.

Wait.

No.

He did.

“Hey, Linhardt?”

Linhardt groaned at the sound of his name. “Things were going so quietly for almost a full minute.”

“Oh, shut it.” There was no bite in the words, but just in case, Caspar nudged his shoulder, ignoring Linhardt’s outraged complaint at the tough armor shoving into his robes. “What am I…what am I supposed to do? While you’re…I dunno, Crest-researching or whatever.”

“Hm.” Linhardt squinted in the sunlight. He was silent for long enough Caspar was about to get pissed off when he said, “I suppose you could help plan our Fhirdiad itinerary with Dorothea. I’ve a limited research stipend from the publisher, and—”

Caspar stopped in his tracks, but this time, Linhardt only emitted a barely-audible sigh and kept marching.

“Inertia goes hand in hand with fatigue, Casp—”

“Dorothea’s _alive_?”

Linhardt’s back did not stop retreating. “Hopefully, assuming you haven’t detained us long enough she withered away and died.” He tossed an impatient glare over his shoulder. “Maybe you can discuss it with her when we actually _return_ to the inn? Physical labor plus _emotional_ labor of stumbling upon you brooding in the middle of nowhere has left me positively drained. She’ll tell you a much more interesting version of the story, anyway.”

Caspar shut up the rest of the way, surely much to Linhardt’s joy.

How many other of their friends had survived?

How many hadn’t?

Linhardt’s fingers sparked green for an instant, healing his own cuts from whatever thorny plants he’d been digging around in. He’d always been a better healer than fighter—Caspar’s jaw hardly even ached anymore.

_“I was almost…smitten! You really know how to sock it to ‘em, don’t you? I guess lack of restraint suits you almost as much as this cut. Makes you look…kind of rogueish, actually.”_

Caspar opened his mouth to ask, to get reassured, to be told he’d done the right thing, that he hadn’t cost the Empire their future by letting a warrior escape who was only going to die later, to be—

Linhardt practically collapsed when the tiny inn came into view. “Thank the Goddess, Saint Seiros, Saint Whoever, the genius who invented pillows. I didn’t think I could take another step.”

Caspar kept his nervous questions to himself. For now.

No use making an already-cranky Linhardt crankier before they’d even made it halfway across House Blaiddyd territory.


	2. Hilda

“Aw, you really shouldn’t waste your time on little old me. Handsome guy like you should have no trouble finding a girl a little closer to home, huh?”

Her soon-to-be-former lover opened and closed his mouth like a hooked fish on the docks. Hilda fiddled with the roll of silver wire he’d just purchased for her, and really, it was such a shame she’d gotten sick of him and his pushy, stumbling ways. The man did know quality material when he saw it.

She wondered if he’d make her give the wire back. It was the perfect thickness for that necklace she’d sketched out—

“Don’t be like that. Hilda, look at me.” She didn’t really want to; he was going to look sad or maybe annoyed or even angry. But he also didn’t like being ignored, and hey, she might as well give him one final opportunity to nag her. She lifted her head.

Yep. Sad and annoyed. Two out of the three.

“Just stay here. With me. In Fhirdiad. Don’t talk such…such _nonsense_ about ‘a girl closer to home’ when you could be—”

“Sweetie, you know I—like you a lot,” Hilda cut him off with an air pat in the general direction of his hair. “But Fódlan’s Locket is _so_ far, and my big brother would miss me so—”

“Your big brother, your big brother,” her definitely-soon-to-be-ex-lover mimicked her voice. “Always with the _big brother_ bullshit with you. You stay here with me and there’s no _problem_ with a big brother—”

Oh, Hilda wanted this to be over with. Mercedes had sent her a letter saying she was in town, and while Hilda was a little terrified by the fact Mercedes had found her so quickly when even _Hilda_ hadn’t heard of her arrival…

Mercedes didn’t just mean _spending the day out and about doing charitable works far away from annoying ex-lovers_. Mercedes also meant her husband, _Sylvain_ , of all people, and _Sylvain_ of all people meant _expensive, good alcohol_.

“Are you done?” Hilda asked sweetly when the guy was done railing against Lord Holst, whose name he barely pronounced right. “Because I’ve got like, a thing, and I kind of wanna, you know, let us go our separate ways and all. You’re a busy guy, too, huh?”

She worried for a moment he was going to raise a scene, because he could _get_ like that—all mopey with a puffed-up chest at the same time, waiting for her to soothe him even though she rarely knew how. It wasn’t like she was going to flip her skirt in the middle of the store, and frankly, she felt a little…desiccated thinking about a final pity-fuck before booting him out forever.

But no. He didn’t puff up; he deflated. And Hilda skipped out the door, silver wire in hand, free of a relationship, feeling all the lonelier for it.

Well. Off to the royal palace, then, to have a good cry and a good drink before she got someone to arrange the trip back home for her. Maybe if she seemed pathetic enough, Sylvain would flirt with her, just a little. For old times’ sake. Hilda didn’t mind a pity-fuck if she was the one being pitied, and while she was pretty sure Sylvain was as interested in getting murdered by Mercedes as Hilda was in actually fucking him, there wasn’t anyone around anymore to shower her with compliments and favors without expecting anything in return.

All _that_ had ended with the war. An unpleasant side effect of peacetime Hilda had not anticipated.

There wasn’t a real _Alliance_ anymore. Her friends had scattered or were dead; or worse, had paired up with each other faster than Hilda could say ‘betrayal.’ She’d tried for a little to get Holst’s secretary to send missives, find out where everyone had gone, but her brother had told her to stop. Peace was still fragile, he’d explained in that calm, patient way of his. If it looked as though a strong military force like House Goneril was trying to hunt down notable figures who _hadn’t_ gone out of their way to help the Kingdom—or had actively gone out of their way to _harm_ —an unhappy, one-eyed kingly glare might get aimed their direction. They might seem _suspicious_.

So she’d let it drop.

The downside, of course, was dropping all her friends. And that left a gaping void in her life, one she was pretty sure she could fill with the same compliments and helping hands as she had in the past…but these boys, these men were…

 _Boring_.

And Hilda had no idea what they were doing wrong.

* * *

Hilda spent exactly fifteen minutes helping Mercedes polish silverware—fifteen minutes too many, honestly—before Sylvain’s father found them and berated Mercedes for what felt like triple that time. Smiling Mercedes listened with an attentiveness even Hilda knew wasn’t genuine, but it satisfied the Margrave enough for him to limp away following Mercedes’s sixteenth “I’m so sorry, Father.” She didn’t roll her eyes when she turned back to smile at Hilda, but Hilda felt the sentiment drip off Mercedes’s tongue when she asked, “Shall we move on to the candlesticks? Perhaps with less singing this time?” Hilda had declined and watched Mercedes do the rest while they chatted about clothes and boys— _men_.

Sylvain did indeed flirt with her for old times’ sake, and Hilda flirted right back just as harmlessly. He’d gotten worse at lying about his problems than she remembered, but he also had gotten plain old _worse_ in that his face lit up every single time Mercedes came up in conversation. Which was often. Understandable, considering their newlywed-ness, but no less annoying. Smooth-talking, sleeps-with-anyone-and-everyone Sylvain, had grown…

Domestic.

Content.

Happy.

 _Happy_.

Didn’t anyone remember there were still plenty of wars going on? Hilda hadn’t been lying in her breakup: Almyra kept eying the Locket, sending occasional scouting parties their way. It was unusual enough in their usual tactics that Holst’s nerves had rubbed off on her. She’d found herself staring at Freikugel before her trip to Fhirdiad, and _not_ in revulsion for the first time in _ever_.

And even Sylvain should have been more worried. Sreng’s fight for resources and his father’s refusal to negotiate had remained as constant as ever.

No, Sylvain was off making doe eyes at Mercedes, who was off polishing silver out of spite. Claude had fucked off to who-knew-where. Marianne had fucked off to Edmund territory, practically under lock and key for nobility grooming. Ignatz and Raphael had fucked off to the Alliance but who-knew-where within it.

Lorenz had fucked off to the afterlife, as had Leonie.

As had so many, many people Hilda remembered caring about. As much as she’d cared about _anyone_. And…

How dare so many other friends be happy when she was stuck in Fhirdiad, all alone without a single vaguely interesting bachelor to take her out to dinner, to make her forget these gloomy, boring thoughts?

* * *

It was a nice tavern. Too nice for the kind of company Hilda wanted, maybe.

The Goneril ambassador didn’t have nearly as much power in the new Kingdom as Hilda was accustomed to. The ambassador had managed to find transportation back home, but it was for _tomorrow_ at best, and she still needed this paper signed and that approval granted and this money transferred from that hand to this one.

Hilda had told her to forget the whole thing.

Merchant caravans were still a thing. And money holding sway over people was very much a thing, too. And…

“I mean, sure, you’re real gorgeous,” the merchant stammered, blushing to the tips of his ears, “but…”

Hilda had her own _things_ , too.

“It is a cute butt, isn’t it?” Hilda wiggled her hips enticingly. The chair hid any ogles and saved her dignity a little, but the merchant swallowed and leaned forward anyway.

“I mean, uh, no, it’s just, I mean, it _is_ , but, agh!” The guy slapped himself—wait, what? He’d _actually_ slapped himself like he was in a puppet show—“Goneril is really out of my way. And it’s not like we’ve got any plans with any nearby towns to set up shop, you know?”

“Hm.” It was rapidly approaching the point where Hilda feared she’d have to sweet-talk the ambassador and apologize, or worse, offer her services as a mercenary. “Well, my brother’s Lord Holst, you know? I bet he’d reward you like, a week’s worth of town…merchanting for escorting me safely. _Untouched_ and safely,” she added when one of the guy’s fellow merchants a seat over smirked with too many teeth.

The first guy, the nice one, sighed. “I’m sorry, miss,” and he really did sound sorry, “but whatever lord your…brother or father or anyone, whatever they are…We just can’t justify it.”

Hilda gaped.

“He’s Lord Holst,” she repeated, in case he hadn’t caught the name.

Oh, no. The confusion wrinkling corner of the merchant’s eyes was not fake or dumb.

Hilda really wasn’t in the Alliance anymore.

“Lord Holst, was it? Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in ages.” An amused, velvety voice floated over from some table behind her.

“But you’ve heard it. _Right_?” Hilda asked, twisting in her chair, ready to prove to these clueless merchants he was _real_ and _rich_ when—

Dorothea smiled, and she looked _exactly the same_ , the same red dress trailing the smudged tavern floor, the same quirked upturned lips from the Academy days, the same cool green gaze from the streets of Enbarr aflame.

“Dorothea?” Hilda asked anyway, like a baffled _idiot_ , and okay, she was one right now, but she couldn’t _help_ it—

“Haven’t seen your cute face in ages, either.” There was something uncertain and cautious in Dorothea’s tone. Hilda couldn’t blame her. What would _she_ do if Hilda were in Dorothea’s place? If Hilda were in…this exact scenario, really.

Except if the Empire had won the war. Except if they were in Enbarr.

“It is pretty cute, yeah.” It came out thoughtless and empty this time. Kneejerk reaction. Familiar, something familiar, something _easy_.

Dorothea tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Hilda did the same, even though nothing had really escaped either of her ponytails. What else was there to do? They each searched for something to say and came up empty. Distantly, Hilda knew the merchants were grumbling.

“Oh, there you are.” Green robes floated to Dorothea’s side. The sight of Linhardt materializing in a lively Fhirdiad tavern was, somehow, more comforting than Dorothea’s uncharacteristic, awkward silence. “We were going to eat without you. Hello, Hilda.”

“Hi.”

“I’m…not particularly hungry, Lin,” Dorothea said, tension rolling off her bare shoulders in waves. She was standing awfully close to Linhardt considering they’d once fought on opposite sides of a battlefield.

A spike of jealousy stabbed Hilda in the heart. _Really? Them, too?_

Linhardt only shrugged. Unflappable as always. “Well, I’m sure the food’s half-inhaled already. Unless…” His eyes _almost_ lit up, like a genius plan had struck him. “Why don’t you join us, Hilda? Dorothea says she’s not hungry.”

“Lin, I really don’t think—”

“Sure,” Hilda’s mouth supplied. “I’m always up for a free meal. Well—you _are_ treating me, right?”

“We are,” Linhardt smiled so faintly Hilda almost missed it. “I mean, we already paid for it, right? Senseless to let it go to waste.”

* * *

Linhardt and Dorothea’s table was already occupied.

Food occupied every bit of its surface, sure. A basket of bread was even perched precariously on the edge of the unused fourth chair. True to Linhardt’s fear, several of the plates did look… _less_ occupied than they might have arrived. But another chair, one of the other three _not_ stacked with bread?

“Finally,” Caspar said through a mouthful of something gamey-looking. “I just dug in, you know, you took _forever_ —”

Hilda wiggled her fingers at his shocked expression. “Um, hi there, Caspar. Long time no see, huh?”

Caspar wasn’t even _subtle_ in the way he looked her up and down. But there wasn’t exactly much imaginary undressing going on in his brain, Hilda could tell. And his lack of _subtlety_ was something about him she’d never appreciated so much until now.

Until, “Hilda, you look great.”

“Thanks?” Hilda pinched her brows, unsure if she should flirt back, take offense, be…weird. She settled for being weird. “So do you.”

Caspar blushed, but he shook his head while Linhardt took a seat next to him. Dorothea still lingered by the table, drumming her fingers on the back of the chair in a strange rhythm. “No, I mean…your arm. I guess Linhardt did a good, um, you know. Your arm looks…good.”

Dorothea’s bright laugh startled them all. Even Linhardt suddenly looked…flapped, Hilda supposed. “Caspar, you sweet-talker. I didn’t know you had it in you.” She pulled her chair back and sat, leaving Hilda the only one with a foot half in the rest of the noisy tavern and the other foot in their quiet, food-filled corner.

Caspar’s faint blush darkened to an unhealthy-looking crimson. “That’s not—man, you really don’t know when to quit with the teasing,” he complained, shoveling another forkful of meat stew into his mouth. Dorothea only offered him a faint smile so reminiscent of Linhardt’s that jealousy left another bruise on Hilda’s heart. “You rubbed off on her,” Caspar accused his friend with a threatening jab of his serrated knife, like he’d been thinking the same thing.

“It’s a possibility,” he replied while Dorothea covered her mouth with a dainty titter, some joke both Hilda _and_ Caspar clearly missed. “Hilda, if you didn’t change your mind about eating Dorothea’s share, then you should move fast, before _this_ one—”

“Hey, you can order more!”

“Yes, let’s do that. I’m a bit hungrier, Lin.”

“Fine, let’s spend all of my stipend in one go. Hilda, while you’re just _standing_ there—”

Hilda shook herself. “Oh, uh, I can sit!” She made for the last chair—the bread one—but Linhardt kept his hand on the basket, preventing her from moving it.

“Do you terribly mind making yourself useful? Perhaps seducing a few more plates over here, or—ouch! Whatever was _that_ for?” Linhardt lurched forward over the table, like he’d been subtly kicked under the table in addition to being un-subtly punched in the arm.

Hilda’s grateful heart swelled in her chest. _How noble of them_.

“I’ll buy it,” Caspar said flatly. “Learn some tact, man.”

Dorothea failed to cover her next, less delicate laugh.

“Don’t you start,” Caspar warned her, no bite in his bark. He stood, leaving his plate half-finished. “C’mon, Hilda. Whaddya want to eat?”

Hilda followed him to the tavern’s busy bar, grateful for the buzz-buzz of the patrons’ conversation obscuring need to elaborate until they reached the innkeeper. Weirdness aside…

It didn’t seem the optimal time to joke how Linhardt was right—that she’d managed to seduce a few more plates to their table.

* * *

“I don’t mind a detour. Sure.”

Dorothea sighed and put a palm to her forehead. It was the most graceful facepalm Hilda ever had the good fortunate to witness. “A ‘detour,’ Lin? Is that what you’re calling it?”

“That _is_ what I said, yes.”

“Goneril territory,” Dorothea said slowly, like she wasn’t sure Linhardt had understood, which was funnier because she of all people probably could read just how serious the man was, “is not much of a _detour_ when we’re headed north to _Gautier_.”

Hilda, too, was shocked. She hadn’t even spun her best wheedling. Linhardt had agreed to let her join their merry band of Empire defectors until they could drop her off back home, safe and sound. She started to wonder what Holst would say when he saw the four of them—four of them!—roll up. Just as quickly, she decided to stop wondering about it.

Caspar fidgeted in his seat, too, but Hilda had trouble reading his expression. He didn’t even speak up.

“What?” Linhardt frowned. “It’s not like either of you have anything better planned.”

Silence fell cold and heavy on the table. And now Hilda understood.

“Lin,” Dorothea said quietly. That one syllable was weighed down with meaning even Hilda comprehended.

Even _Linhardt_.

“That was rude of me, wasn’t it?”

“It was.”

Caspar stayed silent. Hilda tried to peek out at him under her bangs, because the Goddess knew _she_ didn’t have anything worthwhile to contribute to this conversation. But the way he set his jaw, the crossed, muscled arms, the hard line of his mouth…None of it explained his absolute lack of vocal reaction.

“You really don’t have to,” Hilda added lamely. “If it’s too much trouble—”

“Nah, let’s do it.” Caspar leaned forward and grinned. Hilda didn’t miss how he wouldn’t look at her straight on. “Favor for a favor, right?”

Hilda stared. “A what?”

Caspar’s grin grew. She didn’t really like it. “Well, you didn’t kill either of us, did you?”

Conversation froze again for an unpleasant heartbeat.

“Well, now that you’ve said that,” Dorothea said breezily, “she’ll have plenty of chances.”

“Can both of you stop?” Linhardt rubbed his forehead. “All three of you, actually.”

“Wait, why me too?”

“Because you’re pouting, Hilda.”

She was indeed pouting. She tried to unpout her lips and look more somber in her hurt.

“Caspar defended Fort Merceus. Dorothea defended Enbarr. King Dimitri’s napping on the royal approval I need to get reinstated as Count of my territory. Now that we’ve so gracefully addressed the wyvern in the room,” Linhardt continued, “can we please move on to logistics? Such as itinerary, lodging horses, the exhausting sightseeing I’m positive that now _three_ people want to do on the way?”

The table sighed in collective relief. Salad leaves deemed tasteless fluttered on the otherwise-empty plates. And while no one felt brave enough to mention Linhardt’s—indeed tactless—earlier comment about uncertain futures, somehow his tactless insistence those future-less companions do all the scheduling work made ignoring the problem that much easier.

And Hilda was _all_ about ignoring problems until other people dealt with them for her.

* * *

They hadn’t made it forty paces past Fhirdiad’s main gates before Hilda had to insist they stop and tend to Caspar’s injuries.

“I’ve had worse,” Caspar sniffed the blood back up his nose. The nose looked a little battered, too.

“You sure have,” Hilda scolded. “But you needed patching up then, too.”

Caspar laughed and swung into the saddle, taking only a few tries and one too-tight grip on the bridle to do so. He wasn’t even limping, and Hilda had to admit she was impressed—the other guy they’d left passed out by the stables and easy pickings for highwaymen had tossed him over his shoulder. She’d seen Caspar land _hard_ on the hoof-stomped-hard dirt.

_“Oooh, ‘smitten,’ is it?”_

She shook herself. Dorothea chimed in. “You’re going to leave a trail of blood, you know. My horse is going to step in it. Or _I_ will.”

Caspar just kept going even as the three of them slowed down. Now it was just stubbornness. Like a mule, not a horse.

His haircut suited him, now that it wasn’t thick with blood.

Hilda shook herself _again_ and tried to focus on her own words. “Come on. You didn’t need to defend my _honor_ like that, or whatever. Let me do this for you, okay?”

“My, a rare Hilda offer of aid. You’d do well to take it—”

“Lin, you’re _really_ not one to talk—”

Caspar glanced over his shoulder, and the _pain_ in his expression rattled Hilda to her core, stripped her clean of all those hot little bubbles she’d forgotten she used to feel. “I don’t need a favor from you, Hilda. Thanks but no thanks.” He wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve, and this time, the blood streaming from his nose stopped.

Hilda’s numb fingers slipped from her reins. The horse, free to meander at its leisure, tottered towards a juicy-looking patch of grass, nearly careening into Linhardt’s horse, and he complained as he pulled up short on his own reins.

“What do you mean, a ‘favor?’”

Dorothea scoffed, but her heart wasn’t in it. Even Hilda could tell. “Really, Caspar? Is _that_ what this is about?”

Hilda had never been very good at riding horses. Her horse seemed to agree, barely blinking as she practically toppled from the saddle. She marched straight up to Caspar’s horse and tugged his blood-streaked arm. He was also a poor enough rider he wobbled and nearly fell, because—

“Ow!”

Ordinarily, Hilda would use it as an opportunity to purr _see_ , he _did_ need help, he was _injured_ and wouldn’t it be nice to be tended to, maybe in that nice little copse of trees over there, and they could catch up on what the war had deprived their school days of?

But Hilda wasn’t focused on her attraction right now. No, she was _annoyed_ , and Hilda was annoyed at being annoyed because being annoyed was so _unfamiliar_.

And boy, was she annoyed she couldn’t even enjoy that delicious feel of his strong, muscled arms in her equally-strong grip.

“What do you mean, ‘ _a favor_?’” Hilda repeated, shaking his arm for good measure. Caspar winced, but didn’t wrench himself free. His horse slowed to a stop, confused by the struggle atop her back.

“Knock it off. We’re just even, okay? Favor for a—”

“Hil, he’s always stubborn like this—”

“Your horse is getting away, you know.”

Hilda ignored all of them. “I don’t _do_ favors. What are you talking about?”

“For not killing you back then!” Caspar yelled. She let go like he’d feinted a punch, and he had the decency to flush, to look away. “For not…killing you.”

 _He was stupid, to let her go—_ “ _You really do got noodly arms, huh?”_ _He took off running without checking her face one last time_.

Hilda staggered back. She’d never thought about pushing someone off a horse before, but _if she were going to think, just think about it ever in her life_ , it would definitely be now. “So you beat up some stupid Kingdom soldier for…for swatting my ass, because…you didn’t _kill me_ during the war?”

Some distance behind them, Hilda could hear Dorothea and Linhardt dismounting, footsteps racing after a horse gone cheerfully astray in search of literal greener pastures.

But this horse had stopped, and this horse had Caspar atop it, and Caspar was well within horse-pushing distance, should Hilda choose, which she _wouldn’t_ but she technically _could_ —

A muscle twitched in Caspar’s jaw. His glare, not actually intended for her, still sent a cold shiver down her spine. “Sure as fuck did.”

Hilda didn’t push him off the horse.

She pulled. He let her.

Caspar tried to hide his cringe of pain, but pressed up against her, half-collapsed in her arms as he was, he didn’t do a great job.

“You’re the worst knight in shining armor in the world,” she said against his slightly-bloody lips, and kissed him.

His lips were dry, a little metallic-tasting, and unresponsive. Hilda pulled back with a frown. Had she read it wrong? Was he not actually—

A huge, stupid grin unfurled on Caspar’s face. He grabbed her waist properly, tugged her close. “You mean the best, right?” This time, when he kissed her, it was _proper_.

Well. Proper in the sense that he was kissing her _back_. Not proper in the way his tongue was—his hands were— _her_ hands were—one of his legs was—

“You,” Hilda gasped, wrenching herself away from his hot mouth, tongue, lips, “can be so _stupid_ when you pay attention to stuff.”

Caspar trailed his lips along her ear, gentle without warning, and she shivered. His voice was deep when he said, “Spell it out for me.”

Her fingernails dug into the fine hairs on the nape of his neck. She heard his breath hitch, felt his hand descend, stroke her back and—no, back up again. Respectful. Almost.

“I didn’t ask for it,” she managed to say.

Caspar pulled away. He looked kind of silly, all bruised up with punches and kisses. “But you never ask for help.”

She let her arms fall to her sides, and Caspar did the same. “Yeah, I _never ask for it_. I didn’t ask you to—to not kill me. So it wasn’t a favor. And it’s—you can’t say it was.” Hilda swallowed around the explanation she didn’t know how to give.

That Hilda didn’t guilt guys into helping her. That guys helped her because _they_ wanted to. That she never needed to ‘get even’ with them.

That they never expected anything in exchange.

Caspar ran a hand through his mussed-up hair, and Goddess, but her mouth was dry, he was _handsome_ and she’d be lying if she said she’d never noticed but not really like _this_ kind of noticing.

He took a deep breath, thoughtful in a way Hilda had never seen him. “I didn’t…want to seem like that. Guilty. I know I can,” each word that came out now came in a rush, “be guilty for things that aren’t my fault. Or that _are_ my fault. I don’t…I remembered you, Hilda. I remembered what you said.”

Hilda’s breath hitched.

A small, almost sad smile lifted one corner of his _oh-so-kissable_ lips. “You told me you liked how…I don’t let other people’s rules and expectations stop me from doing what I wanted. So I figured that meant yours, too.”

She gaped. “But I didn’t want you to _kill_ me—”

“No, no!” Caspar hurried to interrupt her. “I mean, I just, I meant…I don’t know how to make things right again. I’ve spent way too much time feeling like shit about everything, Hilda. Guilty and bad and…I haven’t done good things.”

Hilda reached out, unsure what she was seeking. But he reached out, too, and holding his hand while he talked seemed pretty good.

“I’m tired of that.”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

He was having trouble looking at her again, but it was shyness—she thought, hoped—instead of discomfort. “Thanks for never trying to change me.”

Hilda gave their clasped hands a little shake. “You’re welcome. But you…Well, you kind of tried to change the way I do things, you know?”

Caspar’s eyes widened. Comically. Like this was more horrifying than anything than they’d seen, _done_ —“Wh—I did? When?”

“Just now.” She leaned in, fluttering her eyelashes _so_ meaningfully that even he would get it. “You said you tried to change _my_ way of doing things.”

“To make it up to you! To help you out even when you didn’t—”

“But I wasn’t even planning on getting help. I can’t really trade a _compliment_ for someone _not killing me_.” The eyelash-fluttering wasn’t meaningful enough; Caspar just looked scared. “Maybe you could make it up to me for real.”

Hilda’s close proximity, combined with her nonsensical suggestion, finally seemed to be processing. “Um. Didn’t you just say you don’t want to get even?”

“Well.” She lifted her chin to the perfect angle. Caspar’s eyes darkened, _finally_. “We can trade. Compliment for a compliment?”

“Oh.” Caspar blinked, blinked, blinked. “ _Oh_. Yeah. I can manage that.”

Hilda smiled, and even she could feel how relieved, how catlike it was. Caspar sucked in a sharp breath, and the sound, the sight, sent pride and anticipation curling through her entire body. “I’ll go first. Since you saved my ass twice. Literally.” His laughter was hoarse, and Hilda didn’t care. “Compliment number one: you look even _more_ handsome with this haircut than when I last saw it.”

Caspar’s cheeks were dusted pink. “Last time was pretty, uh, different circumstances.”

“Yep. So you’re _extra_ handsome. Where’s my compliment, handsome boy?”

Caspar struggled to form words while Hilda pressed herself closer. Horse hooves clopped in the distance, then farther, muffled on grass or mud or something else she didn’t care about. They were far, and that was what mattered.

“Uh,” he finally settled on, “you’re a really good kisser.”

“Compliment two,” she fired back, pretending she wasn’t blushing or preening internally, “I’m gonna kiss you again just for saying that.”

“That’s not really a compliment, exa—agh!”

This kiss was slower, calmer, more focused than the last. Hilda sucked on his bottom lip and shuddered when he groaned into her mouth. Every now and then, that cold, injured tang brushed her tongue, and she’d back away from the taste even if she wasn’t hurting him, but there was time later, he could heal, _she_ could heal, even though she hadn’t wanted to admit she was hurting at all from the last year, five, six—

“Your horse is getting away, Caspar.” Linhardt’s out-of-breath voice interrupted them like splash of cold water. “And I just _ran_ to get Hilda’s back, and I’m never doing it again.”

“Oh, shit!” Caspar took off running so fast Hilda nearly fell. Linhardt went off to the side of the road with two horses in tow, mumbling unflattering things about how there were far more interesting things to do so close to the Tailtean Plains than whatever _this_ was.

Dorothea raised a brow at her, somehow managing to look dignified despite the loose grass sticking out of her unkempt hair.

“Really, Hil? Can’t even make it out of Blaiddyd?”

Hilda giggled, like she was stupid, like she was seventeen, like she was mortal, like she needed to take life by the horns or else. “You look like you took a tumble, too.”

Dorothea snorted, _un_ dignified. Hilda’s horse, kept in check by Dorothea’s side, snorted back in confusion. “If you mean ‘tumbled down a hill to catch a horse _you_ let escape while my fiancé complains the whole while…’ Then yes. I took a tumble, too.”

Hilda laughed, loud, _stupid_ , young, _easily_ , before Dorothea’s words brought her up short. “Wait. Fiancé?”

Dorothea glanced askance at the put-out Linhardt, rearranging the saddlebags so carefully Hilda knew there were weird, fragile contraptions hidden within. “I should probably tell him, shouldn’t I? He may never figure it out otherwise.”

Hilda watched Caspar in the distance fall on his ass while the horse danced away to a tempting-looking flowering hedge. “Maybe he’s smarter than you give him credit for.”

A crash behind them, and even more muttering followed. Dorothea sighed, but the sound was so sickly-sweet Hilda couldn’t take it seriously at all. “Yes. Well. Maybe he’ll surprise me.”

“Weirder things have happened.”

Caspar had finally recaptured his horse and was comforting a bereft Linhardt, two cleanly-broken pieces of…something in his hands. Obviously feeling two pairs of grossly affectionate eyes on them, they both looked up. Caspar grinned, Linhardt sighed, and Hilda remembered how boring happiness was. Happiness and boredom came at the expense of bloodshed and heartache, because war had rules and logical methods and—

“ _You do things your way and no one else’s_.”

“ _You shouldn’t let anyone change you, or else you’ll end up losing the qualities that make you so great_.”

The Officers Academy had made her happy.

And it had been the _opposite_ of boring.

There had been bloodshed, and boring lectures, heartaches, and hot professors, and gross professors, and intriguing gossip, and Marianne brushing her horse, and Claude making her roll her eyes, and Caspar picking fights with anyone Linhardt’s height and higher. And happiness.

“Lin, it’ll be okay. We don’t need to go back. The faster we move, the sooner we’ll get to Castle Gautier.”

“Yeah! I’m sure Sylvain or whatever’ll have plenty of Crest stuff he doesn’t want. You can steal whatever, I’m positive.”

Linhardt sighed. “It’s better than wasting the money my stipend covered for travel, I suppose.”

“Horses, horses!” Hilda cheered, as if she meant it. “Come on, Linhardt! Let’s get back to it! Let’s travel and ride and—”

“I’m exhausted already.” Another sigh, and he swung into his saddle. The three of them did the same.

Caspar’s horse shoved hers, and Hilda squealed. Caspar was all apologies, soothing his horse, her horse, _her_ , he’d only meant to nudge gently—

“Caspar, how are you supposed to give me help I don’t want if you’re always endangering me?”

Caspar grinned at the utter lack of scolding in her voice. “’Cause it means I always have something to help with!”

Hilda blushed, twenty-four and stupid and full of enough adventure for two lifetimes. “I can’t even compliment you on that.”

“Give me two anyway. I gotta stock up for when I need them!”

Hilda rolled her eyes and was deciding whether she was brave enough to kiss him on horseback or have her horse ‘nudge his gently’ when Linhardt called, “Stop flirting or I _will_ pull over and get sick.”

“Control yourselves, children,” Dorothea agreed sweetly from up ahead.

Well, if Dorothea was complaining…Hilda giggled, Caspar smirked and raised a single brow, and they moved their horses with minimal unwieldy trotting.

Four absolutely awful horseback riders wiggled along an uneven road with only a vague destination in mind, wildly varied whims, and unevenly distributed senses of adventure.

Hilda might not wind up entirely _safe_ and _sound_ , but she doubted she’d see her brother any time soon, anyway.


End file.
